"I think so."
Then she gave him the soiled paper, which he read and passed on to Rosamund. "He wrote that," she said. "Miss Rose hadn't ought to be here when he gets out."
She gave Rosamund a look of agonized tenderness, then left them. Presently they heard her walking in her room upstairs, up and down, up and down. Ogilvie shook his head when Rosamund asked him to go up to her.
"She must work it out alone," he said. "She's strong enough."
But Rosamund, uneasy, went to Mother Cary.
"Yes, she's strong enough," the old woman said, when she had heard all about it. "Land! She's got to be! An' she's jest got to fight it out by herself. Don't you try to cross her, honey, nor say anything to ease her, 'cause that ain't the way to treat hurts like that. Joe's her man, an' she'd lay down her life for him, ef 'twas only her own life; an' I reckon even ef she thought 'twould save his soul she couldn't 'a' found stren'th to tell on him. Yet that's what he thinks she done! Eh, me! The contrairy fools men like him can be when they sets out!"
"He's not worth her caring for! He's not worth it!"
"Land, no! I shouldn't think he was! But that ain't got a mite to do with it! Women folks don't care for them they ought to care for, jest because they ought to; nor they don't stop carin' when they ought to stop, neither. An' Joe bein' her man, she can't give a thought to whether he's worth it or not; she's jest got to go on lovin' him."
"But, oh!" the girl cried, "shouldn't you think his distrust would make her loathe him? To know herself a true and faithful wife, and to be distrusted! Oh!"
Mother Cary's eyes were very bright as she looked out of the window across the snowy field to where Pap was cutting down a tree for firewood. She took one of Rosamund's hands in hers before she spoke, and patted it.